After a long break, television’s favorite psychotic murderer is back on Netflix with fresh episodes of YOU. In three seasons of YOU, Joe Goldberg has managed to send shivers down the spines of numerous viewers. The man has a whopping ten people on his “murdered” list in three seasons already.

If he was dating someone as naive as Beck, viewers would have sympathized with his partner. However, Love Quinn is no less disturbing than the man himself.

Joe and Beck

Viewers of the show in season 1 were rooting for Guinevere Beck to leave Joe, hoping he’d grow out of his stalker tendencies over time. He killed everyone surrounding her that made him feel even slightly threatened. The man killed Benji Ashby, Beck’s former love interest, Peach Salinger, Beck’s best friend, and lastly, when he couldn’t contain her, he killed Beck herself.

This showed us that Joe’s intentions were never to protect Beck, no matter what he told himself in the voice-overs. He always acted in self-interest. Benji’s teeth in this box were nothing but a trophy. That was the death of Joe’s image as a romantic but psychotic character. From here on, he would only be known to fans as a psychopath with stalking tendencies.

Joe and Love

This changes in season two of YOU, as Joe Goldberg meets his new obsession, Love Quinn. At first sight, fans experience empathy for Love, expecting her to be a mere next endeavor. However, Love later shows she’s no Beck, and she is nowhere near as innocent.

While Beck lied about framing Dr. Nicky and telling Joe she understood his reasons to kill, Love has not only killed once in her past- she has killed twice for Joe.

Her first victim of the series was Delilah Alves, who Joe believed he killed in a drug-induced stupor. Love sees Delilah in Joe’s book vault and instead of trying to free her, like Beck or Candace or any other of Joe’s partners would have, she kills her to protect Joe’s secret.

Her second victim, much to fans’ distraught, was Candace, Joe’s former partner. Candace traps Joe in his own book vault to show Love his true colors, and yet again, Love feels compelled to kill, in a rather brutal way.

The poetic parallels between Joe and Love

By the end of season two, the couple has killed two people, each in the name of “love”. For Joe, it was Peach and Benji. For Love, Delilah and Candace.

While Joe had killed more people in the initial seasons of the show, Love racks up her numbers throughout the third season. By the end of the first episode itself, she has killed Natalie Engler, whom she saw as a rival of Joe’s love.

Love, although due to a mistake, is also responsible for her ex-husband’s death. In an attempt to get him to stay, she accidentally drugs him with wolfsbane.

Of course, while Love and Joe both had great chemistry and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company, their bond is more than that. The similarities between their killings really do stand out.

In an almost poetic way, Natalie’s death matches that of Benji’s. Joe struggled for attention with Beck. But Love had done for him exactly what he had done for Beck. Joe had finally found someone who was just as obsessive as him.

And who can forget the ending of the third season of the Netflix Original?

Love and Joe both were equally obsessed with each other. But they were also equally selfish and, in an act of self-interest, both tried poisoning each other with wolfsbane. The only difference was that Joe expected it and used an antidote. Had he not taken precautions, both of them would’ve died a poetic, tragic, Romeo-and-Juliet-but-make-it-psychotic death.

Considering their obsessive tendencies, both Joe and Love could’ve lived their murderous little lives together had it not been for Joe’s stalker tendencies resurfacing. They were both equally calculating, equally psychotic, equally murderous, and equally passionate for each other.

A match made in heaven indeed.